


Glad Somebody Made It

by xxx_mlggamer_xxx



Category: The World's End (2013)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, POV Third Person Omniscient, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Sam's POV, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 03:52:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14464419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_mlggamer_xxx/pseuds/xxx_mlggamer_xxx
Summary: The last time Sam saw her brother – he real brother – she was flipping his ear because that’s what little sisters did, and he was getting annoyed because that’s what big brothers did. And she didn’t know that that would be the last time she saw her brother but looking back she’s glad that in that moment they both knew that they loved each other.





	Glad Somebody Made It

The last time Sam spoke to her mum, she had let her in and smiled and kissed her and poured her tea and offered her sandwiches. She had asked how Manchester was and said that she was just fine, nothing to worry about. She had kissed her when she left and told her that she was so proud of her. She told her to stop by one more time before she left, with Oliver.

Oliver was visiting Newton Haven, too, with the boys. With Andy, and Peter, and Steven, and, well, and Gary.

She got lost on the ring road. Again.

    

Sam grew up being called Sam because she thought that Samantha was too girly, and she didn’t want to be very girly. She wanted to play with Oliver outside in the garden but then one day Oliver decided he was too grown up to play in the garden so he stopped, but that happens with a lot of little girls and their big brothers. That didn’t make Sam any less lonely when she started playing by herself, or when Oliver told her that what she was talking about was boring, or when he locked himself up in his room reading books and told her that there were no girls allowed.

When Mum and Dad split up Sam and Oliver moved with Mum to Newton Haven because that’s where she grew up and she knew people who could get her a good job. So Sam went to a new primary school and so did Oliver and that’s where Sam met the twins.

So, when she looks back on her life, Sam says that she grew up in Newton Haven and not in Sanford because that’s where she became the Sam that she is today.

 

As with a lot of little girls (although now Sam was more or a young woman than a little girl) with their big brothers (the relationship between Oliver’s age and hers never changed, of course) Sam sometimes wondered if Oliver even liked her at all. As he went to sixth form and started to have bigger things to worry about, like homework and girls and eventually Gary King (although at this point in the story neither one of the Chamberlain children knew the name), Sam started to feel a little lonely again – even if she was good friends with the twins now and even some new people.

She was a little worried to go to school with Oliver and the older kids because what if she saw Oliver in the hall and he ignored her or made fun of her in front of his friends?

By the time she was in school with him, Oliver had already met Gary King and Andy Knightley and Steven Prince and Peter Page.

She always liked Peter because he was quiet and nervous and nice and at the time she was a bit of all those things as well. She was frightened of Gary and Andy and Steven at first because Gary was loud and got into fights and smoked outside leaning against the wall, and Andy and Steven were always following him.

But then one day she saw Gary get into a fight with Shane Hawkins because Shane Hawkins had given Peter a black eye in the toilets and she figured that maybe he wasn’t all that bad. Maybe Gary King and his gang just laughed and fought and yelled as hard as they could like most boys did when they were that age. And maybe, ultimately, they weren’t that bad or mean or frightening at all.

Because one day Gary was having a party at Peter’s house because Peter’s dad was rich and Gary was bored and Oliver invited Sam over with them. And that surprised Sam because it was just the five of them – not a big banger like Gary really wanted to have – and Oliver had seemed wholly uninterested in Sam ever since he decided that he was too grown up to play with little girls in the garden.

And when they went to Peter’s house everyone was nice – or as nice as teenage boys could be – and treated her as Sam and not as Samantha (which is how a lot of teenage boys tended to treat teenage girls) and when they teased her it was how big brothers were supposed to tease their little sisters and not how smoking, fighting, yelling teenage boys teased quiet and nervous teenage girls.

And from then on Gary and Andy and Steven and Peter would say hello to her in the hall – in their own special ways, of course.

Peter would fall into step with her and talk about whatever homework she might have had in some of the classes he might have taken before, his head ducked down.

Steven would smile in a nervous way that she hadn’t seen him do with anyone else, but she didn’t put too much thought into it because that was the year that Adrien Keane moved into town

Andy would say hi all casual-like and smile wide.

Gary might wink at her and give a little wave, maybe while a teacher was lecturing him in the hall, maybe right before he swung a punch at Shane Hawkins.

Sometimes Gary would do that and the twins would raise their eyebrows at each other from either side of her. Sometimes the Marmalade Sandwich would give her a little glare from across the hall because Gary King was rough and scary and painted his nails black and those were all very appealing things to teenage girls.

But, again, Sam was too busy thinking about how she might audition to be in _Cabaret_ because she knew that Adrien Keane was interested, so she didn’t think too much of it.

    

Well, they’d have the disabled’s.

But that wouldn’t come until a little while later.

 

Adrien Keane died in a motorcycle accident in Italy and it hit Sam much harder than the death of her grandmother, which she felt guilty about. It was just that Adrien Keane was a guy her age, a guy that she had talked to and thought about kissing with a little bit. He was supposed to have the rest of his life ahead of him. It made Sam think of what could happen to her or to Oliver or what could have happened to Andy _that_ night. What could have happened to Gary that night, too, but she was still a little mad at Gary. They all were.

    

The last time she saw her brother he was annoyed because Oliver always seemed to be annoyed. The smallest little things always bothered him, but Sam loved him for it and even teased him a little about it the way little sisters are supposed to tease their big brothers. He was back with his friends which meant that he was back with Gary and while he must have been annoyed he was probably happier about it than he thought he was.

Oliver grew up to be the type of man to have more colleagues than he had friends. And he was content, and he was less annoyed, but he wasn’t as happy as he was with Andy and Steven and Peter and yes, maybe even Gary.

And Sam was his little sister. And little sisters knew these things.

 

Gary was the one who told her what happened to her brother. He was crying, and leaning on Andy, and couldn’t look her in the eye, but he told her. And Steven held her hand and squeezed it tight and didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything anyone could say.

None of them lived in Newton Haven anymore. But her mum did, and Andy’s cousin Paul did and there were lots more people that weren’t related to them that lived there too. They knew the names of some of them, were close friends with some of them.

And they were all gone. They were all mulched, nothing but dirt in the ground now.

They had been dead and gone the whole time. Her mum had been one of those – blank – things when she was making her tea and kissing her and telling her how proud she was. 

But all Sam could think about was how she’d never see her big brother again. She would have time to think about all that other stuff for the rest of her life, which now might be a lot shorter than she ever thought it would be, even after Adrien Keane died.

Gary was gone in the morning. Andy was sad, and maybe even a little angry in a resigned sort of way, but he seemed to understand, and Sam wished he would explain it to her because she didn’t understand at all. Steven was the same way. Maybe he would explain it to her someday. For now, she didn’t want to talk at all – not about Gary, not about Newton Haven, not about her mum, and _certainly_ not about Oliver.

There would be time for all of that later.

 

They helped Andy get back to his wife and when they saw each other they were running and hugging and crying and Steven put his arms around Sam’s shoulders because now she was crying, too, but not because she was happy.

 

The new Oliver was helpful and kind and had a football for a head and didn’t know her at all. He shook her hand and introduced himself and said his name was _Oliver, apparently, but call me Ollie_. And she was glad to because this wasn’t her brother and that was just as much a good thing as it was a bad thing.

In the end, she and Steven decided they wouldn’t need a real estate agent because they would shack up together a little outside London and build the shack themselves.

And when it was done they would sit together on the porch and think about their Oliver and how much he would try to sell their little shack for and laugh together in a sad sort of way.

 

There were rumors about that night – the night the world switched off. Whispers about what happened. No one knew the truth, just that the blanks were the bad guys and the humans were the good guys and _that’s why we can’t let our children around the things that look like people but bleed blue_.

One day when they went into town they saw that Ollie was missing an arm and his head was crushed in a little bit more. He was fragile and scared and unable to cry because he didn’t have eyes.

Steven was angry, and Sam was too and they took Ollie to their little shack because even if this wasn’t her brother this was someone who needed their help. Because sometimes, humans could be monsters, but Steven and Andy and Gary gave them the freedom to be monsters when they saved the world by turning it off. And that was important. Even if it was a bit worrisome when sometimes people who painted their faces with blue and crafted big gnarly weapons would come and knock hard on the door of their little shack. But Sam and Steven weren’t afraid of anything anymore, especially not a bunch of bullies.

And then, one day, Sam realized that it had been quite a while since any big burly men had come knocking on their door and that’s when they started to hear whispers of the Knight who told the story of what really happened. The Knight who was there when the world went out, that the Prince and Princess who live at the edge of London were there, too.

When they went into town they were met both by people who followed them wanting to know what happened and by people who avoided their gaze, although out of respect or fear or anger or all three they couldn’t quite tell. The people that followed asked if the blanks were evil and if Ollie was the Chamberlain who was Sam’s brother and if they knew what happened to the King.

They answered no to all three questions.

 

He was sitting on the porch, talking to Oliver, one day when they got back from their visit into town. The Oliver, just like the Steven and the Andy and the Peter who were there too, was too young and too familiar. The Gary was the right age and had a sword strapped to his back and a broad-rimmed hat pulled over his eyes, but when he looked up at them and smiled they almost thought that he was blank, too. He was cleanshaven and his eyes were clear.

“Gary King and the Enablers,” is how he introduced him and his crew, taking his hat off to do a deep bow because he was Gary King, and Gary King was nothing if not dramatic. His hair had grown out and his not-quite-blonde roots were showing, which explained the hat. “On a bit of a reunion tour.”

And he smiled, and he really did look happy this time – like that night so many years ago when all this started even if they didn’t realize it back then. Except this time, he wasn’t slurring or wobbling or making a fool out of himself. This time he was simply smiling and after everything that had happened Sam smiled too.

And they ran to each other (although it was not a very long way) and hugged and cried a bit and this time Sam’s tears (and Steven’s and even Gary’s) were happy.  

 

The last time Sam saw her brother – he real brother – she was flipping his ear because that’s what little sisters did, and he was getting annoyed because that’s what big brothers did. And she didn’t know that that would be the last time she saw her brother but looking back she’s glad that in that moment they both knew that they loved each other.

She’s sad that she lost her brother. But she’ll be okay, someday, because ever since he brought her to Peter Page’s mansion of a house that first year of school, she had three more brothers (and eventually, a husband), and with the Knight, the Prince, and the King at her back, she knows she can do the impossible.

She already has.

 

 


End file.
